Kalyani Jen Tobin

A few years ago, my husband was diagnosed with leukemia. I stepped away from teaching yoga to become his full-time caregiver — and mom to our six-year-old, who still needed bedtime stories while everything else fell apart. Doctors offered me medication for the anxiety and sleeplessness. I said no. I needed to stay clear and actually be there. But clarity didn't come easily. I was waking at 3 a.m., heart racing, running through worst-case scenarios. I felt like a fraud — I'd spent years teaching people how to find peace, and now I couldn't find any myself. Then my teacher, visiting from India, happened to be nearby. I told him how I felt. He said: "Challenges are inevitable. Suffering is optional. You are choosing to suffer." Something shifted. If my husband and I only had limited time together, I refused to spend it anxious. Every act of care from then on — every meal, every hospital visit, every quiet moment at his bedside — became my karma yoga. My love, in action. I returned to yoga nidra, this time as someone who genuinely needed it. I started sleeping. My anxiety eased. The moment he was cancer-free, I committed to studying yoga nidra more deeply, so I could hand this lifeline to others in their own dark nights. Healing Rest exists because of that season. I'm not guiding you from theory — I'm guiding you from the 3 a.m. I lived through myself. If you're in your own version of that night, I built this for you.

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